


Broken by the back of it

by morvish



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 19:19:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7235248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morvish/pseuds/morvish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was hard enough without the loss.</p><p>Derek Hale and the woods. (pre-season 3)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken by the back of it

_“It’s hard to get out of the woods.”_

He stopped suddenly as the treeline stood solidly before him. Quiet, inscrutable. Derek blew out, closing his eyes as he stood gently through the rush of breathlessness and adrenaline which coursed past him after sprinting. Opening his eyes, he saw much the same. The dark branches curled around each other, enclosing the forest in a tight embrace. He nodded at them; a tradition, ritual, whenever he stopped in this part of the wood. He supposed he was nodding at the lack of danger.

Check, fine, nod.

A routine for the defender, the protector of the woods. It was only natural to communicate with it on some level.

He was feeling more and more like the woods were not what needed protecting; they were protecting themselves. They were protecting him. The wood took care of its own.

Much like Derek did. Much like he wanted to, much like he needed to.

He stared emptily at the trees, one fist clenching and unclenching – though he didn’t notice for a long while.

The trees did not nod back – though he supposed he had not really expected them to.

He closed his eyes again, ready to sprint to his next checkpoint.

The wood was a good enough companion for the most part. It offered food, safety, and a cool, crisp darkness within which he could stop himself remembering, imagining. Remembering and imagining were the two things he was not allowed to do and the wood did not let him.

 _Imagine,_ it whispered, _and you will not see the next enemy coming._

 _Remember,_ it rustled, _and you will not be a good enough leader._

So he could be angry instead, so he could be full of fire and teeth and claws. Always ready for the next attack, always making sure no one could catch him or his pack.

The woods fed the fuel and he thanked it by slowly becoming a part of it.

He could feel arms turning into solid branches, and his feet becoming roots, binding him to the soft, peaty ground of the wood. In a way, the woods had always been his roots. His childhood had been spent here, hours of laughing and squealing with his sisters as they explored every nook and cranny they could find. Sometimes, occasionally, he’d catch a drift of a child’s gleeful shriek, or a burst of bubbly chuckles. But they were always just a bird, the wind, a falling twig. Not memories, not anything.

At the end of a day though, his parents would always call them back. The woods were for dappled sunshiney daytimes, not for the dank and crawling night.

Derek couldn’t find those dapples anymore.

The wood had grown over the gaps in its canopy since then, grown fierce and defensive so the sunlight could not catch it anymore. So that no child could bring its joyful memories back into such a place. This was not a place for playing or laughter. This was a place for – what?

Derek did not really know anymore. He just knew it was for him. His survival, the wood’s survival. It was as much a part of him as he was of it. He did not even have to know his way around; it was as though the trees bent their boughs to show him the way as he ran. Ran fast, slick, as nobbled roots crawled out of the way of his pounding feet, mossy knolls leaning forward for him to leap off of. The wood creaked and moved with him as he ran. Which was why he was so surprised, so shocked, when it led him to the house.

He bit back a growl, hitched in the back of his throat, a defensive reaction.

He felt, inexplicably, shamefully betrayed.

_“It’s hard to get out of the woods.”_

His sister’s words came back to him, loud and chilling. They always did eventually – they _always_ did.

While the trees whispered and tittered as he rocked on his feet, unsure what he was doing, why he was there; the memory of his sister lived bright and obtuse as she patted his head, stroked his hair, smiled warily and said, “It’s hard to get out of the woods.”

He stared at the house.

“You can always talk to me,” said the ghost of a girl and she said it with such sincerity that the words became mocking and hurtful.

He stared at the grave.

“We’ll figure this out together.”

Derek took a step forward and she stopped talking to him. Her beautiful strong face paused, muted, silenced. This face, the way she looked, it was just single moment in a single memory in a single point in time inside his mind. The wood wasn’t allowed to do this.

He took another step. And another. He slowly marched to Laura. To his sister. His alpha.

He crouched beside the grave and stared at it, feeling nothing.

He sat down beside the grave, and felt everything.

He felt it wash through him.

He felt the hungry eyes of the wood bore into him, heard the chirring and muttering as the wood reminded him that they were not allies, not peers. The wood was there long before he had been, and would be for a long time after he was gone.

“Laura,” he asked the air.

A gentle breeze responded.

“I can’t be the alpha,” he said. “I don’t know how to do it.”

The breeze settled around him.

“I’m trying so hard.”

He pawed the ground, grabbed a fistful of loose dirt.

“I’m not supposed to be an alpha and it’s so hard, Laura.”

He balled the dirt in his hand, it was clayey enough that it stuck, and he dropped it. A strange, inner-fist shaped mound. He touched it with the tip of a finger and it collapsed.

The breeze whistled by him once again, and Derek had to leave.

He had to get back into the wood. He would rather get lost, become a part of the anger and the terror of the wood, than spend any more time talking to what is dead and gone. Remembering and imagining. The pain and most of all, the deep, never-never-never-ending sadness.

He wanted the wood to accept him as part of it, he wanted the wood to swallow him up, let him become overgrown and covered in moss, protecting every part of himself so that he would never have to remember again.

He got up and as he ran back to the trees, he dried his eyes, and he grew vines around his heart, and he felt the wood close up around him again. He nodded privately to it. And he felt a gentle shudder nod back.

**Author's Note:**

> So I started watching Teen Wolf, and then made the totally terrible decision to start associating songs with characters. This fic isn't really a song fic, but the title, summary, and line "It's hard to get out of the woods" are all from 'Elijah' by Matthew and the Atlas which is absolutely about Derek.


End file.
